


run with anger, you will shine

by KelpietheThundergod



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Post-Episode s10e11 There's No Place Like Home, Season/Series 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-04
Updated: 2015-02-04
Packaged: 2018-03-10 12:53:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3291029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KelpietheThundergod/pseuds/KelpietheThundergod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean reaches out a hand.</p><p>It's Abaddon, who reaches back. She's laughing, loud and alive, her head thrown back. Dean's throat is closed up tight, he's choking. On what? Abaddon draws him close, her nails digging into skin and muscle of his hand. Her body is a furnace. Over her shoulder, there's only wasteland Dean can see. But it's not empty. There's eyes Dean can feel staring at him from all around, from right ahead, from up above. From under his feet, even. Doesn't it hurt? Dean wants to get away. He draws a breath, shuddering. It's a wall of fire. His body is a tower of stone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	run with anger, you will shine

 

 

 

 

 

 

**run with anger, you will shine**

 

 

 

_run with anger, you will shine_

_when stand still what does it say_

_what does it take_

_shine, shine_

 

_the words you give, betray_

_it's whisper, shout, then scream_

_bye night, bye night_

 

_tell me, what do you want?_

_tell me, how does it feel?_

 

 

 

 

Dean reaches out a hand.

 

It's Abaddon, who reaches back. She's laughing, loud and alive, her head thrown back. Dean's throat is closed up tight, he's choking. On what? Abaddon draws him close, her nails digging into skin and muscle of his hand. Her body is a furnace. Over her shoulder, there's only wasteland Dean can see. But it's not empty. There's eyes Dean can feel staring at him from all around, from right ahead, from up above. From under his feet, even. Doesn't it hurt? Dean wants to get away. He draws a breath, shuddering. It's a wall of fire. His body is a tower of stone. Abaddon isn't laughing anymore, but Dean can feel her smile against his throat. His heart is jumping there, terrified and eager to be torn out, eaten. Is he alive, or does he live?

 

Abaddon puts her other hand against his back, her fingers splayed wide. He aches to shove her away, far away. But the nails in his skin are paralyzing. It's poison. Poison.

 

> > >

 

Dean reaches out a hand.

 

Someone takes it, softly. Warm. She smiles at him. His tiny hand almost disappears in hers. She smells good, so sweet. If he could remember the last one right now, he would shudder at her touch, would throw up when she tugs him close, now. But here, there's no knowing who he is. What he is. There's an undercurrent of wrong, of afraid, but it eases when she laughs, when she rubs at the dirt on Dean's hands. There's a frown on her face when they stick, those rusty red smears on his hands.

 

She turns around and away, to the sink. Water. She will try to wash it off. He feels guilty and sad, for no reason. He tries to laugh, but it sticks in his throat like a piece of broken twig.

 

A door opens, and it's loud, startling. Dean takes a few steps back, straightens his spine, lifts his chin. The man pauses in the doorway and says something angry sounding. His voice is rough and dry like rocks on a road. She says something back. She is sad. Dean thinks of birds in a story, dying because they cried all night and day. He is frozen, pulled back and forth. Where does he move? What does he say?

 

There's splash of water from behind him, and he startles, runs forward and puts his arms around the man. He is so tall. So dark. Dean asks, “Okay?” The man doesn't say anything. No one says anything. No one touches him back. There's no warmth under his hands, nothing to be felt under the dirt. He's touching a body of stone, it smells like fire. Nothing breathes. Dean will never say anything again.

 

> > >

 

Dean reaches out a hand.

 

It's grabbed in an instant, painfully tight, the skin that touches his ice cold and clammy. “You're dead,” Dean says, when he sees the face. Jeffrey grins, the white in his eyes shiny and foreign in the gloom. “I'm not,” he says, his voice a wet and heavy thing in the air, “I'm _dancing_.” He pulls the arm with their clasped hands out straight, puts the other around Dean's waist, spins him to the side. Dean fights to stand still instead, to _not_ move, but it's like even gravity is against him. The ground moves, the air moves, he moves with it.

 

“We're not so different you and I,” Jeffrey whispers, right in Dean's ear. Dean turns his face away, Jeffrey's breath almost making him gag. A smell not of sulfur, but sweet and thick, like dying to be alive. Like apples left in the sun too long, like perfume over dead flowers.

 

“I was nothing without my demon,” and Jeffrey stops spinning them then, pushes Dean back and back, until he hits a surface that feels hard and smooth, like mirror glass. He tries to fight, but there's shackles around his feet, above his heart. Jeffrey smoothes a hand over Dean's face, a touch altogether too light, but Dean's eyes close on their own. There's a noise, and then a splash, and the toxic smell of fresh paint. A brush is moved over his eye lids, again and again, slow and soft, and Dean squeezes his eyes shut tight, tries not to breathe. He doesn't have to ask which color it is.

 

“So I decided I have to get him _back_.”

 

> > >

 

He holds a glass of tab water.

 

Water tastes more bitter each day, and anything sweet cloys on his tongue, sends him gagging. It is just as well. It will be over, one way or another.

 

He fights to keep his distance, keep his calm. It isn't easy. Anything could set him off now, and the fear alone of it happening makes him twitchy, keeps him on edge all night and day. Even leaving his room every morning, he has to take a few deep breaths first, has to make himself do it. Make himself, if not good, at least okay. Only a potential, not a deliberate disaster.

 

It should make no difference, but Sam is having none of it. He leaves Dean in peace when he feels Dean needs it, sticks close to his side even when Dean doesn't deserve it. Sam seems helpless though. Unsettled with the knowledge that there's no lore, no cure in sight, only the long miserable stretch of days until there'll be no running anymore. Until Dean will just _stop_.

 

That's what he calls it in his head, anyway.

 

He's only been awake for three hours and he's just thrown up again. He's curled over the sink in the kitchen now, trying to force some water down his throat. It's not having it. His breath must smell disgusting, _he_ must smell disgusting, but Sam is hovering at his elbow anyway, his eyebrows drawn together in concern. Dean wants to joke, wants to reassure Sam and tell him to take it easy. Dean will do good, until it's inevitably over, because then it will be over for Sam too. Dean will stop, and Sam will move forward. That's the plan, that's... that's just how it's gonna be.

 

It hurts his face when he smiles, he'd rather not know why. “Must be all that healthy crap, I'll adjust,” he grins, weakly. “It'll stop.”

 

It will stop.

 

Sam's hand hovers over Dean's shoulder anyway, and Dean's is clutching the sink's edge, knuckles white and too close under his skin.

 

> > >

 

He holds onto the book with both hands, even though what is says doesn't help him.

 

Dean has the feeling he's loosing his sense of time, on top of everything else. It's not like he can complain, but he's tired anyway, and this just adds to his disorientation.

 

There are phone calls, mostly for Sam, and books and print outs and obscure data. There are the long hours that Dean sleeps, the food he makes and then has to fight to keep down. He hasn't touched the liquor cabinet. The shaking in his hands comes and goes, but he swears he can feel it all the time, right there under skin and bone. Mute and deafening, like a siren call.

 

Cas is there, and then he's gone again, and then he's there again. It's worst and best, when it's all three of them in the room. Worst, because their worry makes Dean's guts swim in stabbing guilt; best, because it all gets worse when Dean's alone.

 

And when it's just Cas and him alone, it's something – else. Not bad, but not good either. It feels like maybe Cas wants to say something, something _to Dean_ , but it just doesn't happen. Dean tells himself it doesn't matter. Cas makes everything easier just by being there, even though he rarely is.

 

Dean is reading, or he's trying to. It's hard to concentrate, especially in the mornings. Or late at night. Or all day and all the time actually; anxiety and a simmering, aimless anger always burning on the edge of his thoughts, constantly threatening to cut down and fill with red all the alternative routes he's been hacking into his tunnel vision.

 

He's trying to read, but really is just staring at the sketch of a barren wasteland next to the page on biblical lore, when something falls down on the table in front of him with a rustle of paper.

 

He looks up, startled out of thoughts he can't remember, and is faced with Cas' sad blue eyes, his concerned frown. Dean tries to smile, and it probably comes out pathetically weak, but this is Cas. He sees through to Dean whatever Dean does, anyway.

 

Cas gestures to the paper bag on the table, “The last time I was here, you looked... hungry,” he finishes, clearly trying for tact. It's not Cas' strongest suit, but not saying that Dean looks starved is one up on telling him he looks horrible after they'd put out his black eyes.

 

This time, the smile comes easier. “Thanks Cas,” he says, and warm fondness spreads through his chest. He opens the bag, and it smells like apple pie, but it turns out to be cookies with apple pie pieces. Just as good. Maybe better, even. He says so, and Cas seems to relax immediately. Like this was really important to him, which can only be a ridiculous delusion on Dean's part.

 

But to Cas, sometimes the smallest things seem to have an enormous significance for him. However undeserving something is, he can give it his utmost attention if it means something to him.

 

Dean feels guilty though, because Cas has god knows better things to do than to bring Dean cookies, but he went to the trouble anyway, and Dean has no idea if he will manage to keep any of this down.

 

“You know, we should share,” he says, when Cas sits down at the table next to him. Cas shakes his head, ruefully, “You know, it's only –”

 

“Molecules to you, yeah I know. Just one, okay? Maybe you'll be lucky.”

 

He holds one out to Cas, and his smile is stretching wide now, but this time, it doesn't hurt. Cas takes the cookie hesitantly, bites half of it off at once, then makes a face. Dean laughs, and then laughs some more when it makes Cas scowl at him. Cas swallows his half of the cookie with difficulty, then holds the other half out to Dean. “You eat it.”

 

Dean huffs out a breath of laughter, but obediently takes it from Cas and shoves it all in his mouth at once, a smug smile on his face while he's munching it. Cas tries to look like he's sulking, but the shine of amusement in his eyes is giving him away. At once, Dean's hand is aching with the desire to reach out and. And what? Stroke it down Cas' cheek, soft and slow, rub a thumb over the skin under his eyes and cup his jaw and draw him near and –

 

But then there's an icy shiver up his spine, an image that flashes through his mind, of hands streaked with rusty red, and Dean rubs his hands together instead, trying to warm his numb fingers.

 

When he looks back to Cas, Cas is staring at him with that damn sad look in his eyes. It always makes Dean sad in return. “You look tired, Dean.” Cas briefly looks to the bag with the rest of the cookies that Dean hasn't touched, then back to Dean. “Sam tells me you're still nauseous. Do you have nightmares?”

 

Dean drops his gaze back down to the sketch of the wasteland, absently rubs his fingertips over the edges of the page. He hopes the cookie stays down. It's the first sweet thing he's managed to eat in quite a while.

 

It feels good, not having to lie when he shakes his head, “I never remember in the morning.”

 

> > >

 

Dean reaches out a hand.

 

He is elated when a warm, firm grip reaches back. It feels familiar, good. Dean feels good. The weight, the pain, the crippling fear that has him cower in corners in the night, with screams locked silent in his throat – it's lifted away. Dean can breathe. He can speak freely, walk lightly.

 

Dean looks up and he _stops_. He's staring back into his own face, his own black eyes.

 

His hands are ever only his own.

 

 

 

 


End file.
